Centrifuges In Slow-cooker? Iran Interim Deal To Go Into Effect Late January

(Tuesday, December 31st, 2013)

The interim nuclear agreement signed between Iran and world powers in November will reportedly only go into effect in late January, an Iranian official said Tuesday.

“According to the conclusions of talks held with technical experts from the P5+1 group, it has been agreed to start the application of he Geneva agreement in the last 10 days of January,” Hamid Baeedinejad, who heads the Iranian delegation of experts to technical talks in Geneva, told Iran’s ISNA news agency.

“The two sides managed to reach an understanding on the implementation of the agreement and now, their views and interpretations [of the Geneva agreement] are the same,” he added.

Iran’s chief negotiator said Tuesday talks in Geneva with world powers on implementing a landmark nuclear deal had made “good progress.”

Negotiations continued throughout the night until early on Tuesday morning in Geneva “and the two sides have made good progress on different issues,” lead negotiator Abbas Araqchi said, according to IRNA. “They are going to submit their conclusions to the vice-ministers and political heads because there are still questions to be resolved on the political level,” he said.

He added that there would probably be “a meeting next week with Olga Schmitt,” the deputy to European Union foreign policy head Catherine Ashton, who has been representing the P5+1 group in Tehran.

Meanwhile, the centrifuges are continuing to spin at Iran’s nuclear facilities.